Sunday, February 27, 2011

Here is the vocabulary list for lesson seven of the Basic Course. Whereas the last three lessons discussed classroom vocabulary, this lesson brings us into the realm of food.

佢 · kui · he, her, him, it

逽 · nìak · you (plural); (singular in the possessive case)

哦 · ngọi · we, us

買 · mai · to buy

鷄 · gai · chicken

米 · māi · raw rice

飯 · fàn · cooked rice

粉 · fūn · noodle, powder

街 · gại* · street

去街 · hui gại* · to go out

吃 · hiak · to eat

做 · du · to do, work, make

慢慢行 · màn-màn* häng · good-bye (walk slowly)

幾好喇嗎？ · gī-hō lā-ma (gēi-hō lā-ma) · how are you?

走 · dāu · to leave, to run

乃個 · nại goi · who?

呀 · ā · (final particle)

出街 · chūt gại* (chūt gại) · to go out

Unlike Mandarin or Cantonese, Taishanese has single-syllable words for the plural pronouns (i.e. us, you, them). In this chapter, we get two: 哦 ngọi “us” and 逽 nìak “you” (“y’all” or “you guys” in colloquial American). Since these words don’t exist in Mandarin or Cantonese, these characters are adaptations.

If you should have any comments, questions or suggestions, just post them below in the comments section!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Here’s the lesson six dialogue. As in the previous lesson, it’s been retranscribed according to my revised romanization. It’s already getting to the point where the dialogue’s running into multiple lines!

1

A: 你好嗎？

Ni hō ma?

B: 我好。你呢？

Ngoi hō. Ni nē?

A: 我好好。

Ngoi hō hō?

2

A: 該一間係唔係學校？

Kwọi yīt-gan hài m̈-hài hòk-hàu?

B: 係，該一間係學校。

Hài, kwọi yīt-gan hài hòk-hàu.

3

A: 嚀一間學校有冇班房呀？

Nịng yīt-gan hòk-hàu yiu-mo ban-fọng* a?

B: 有，嚀一間學校有班房。

Yiu, nịng yīt-gan hòk-hàu yiu ban-fọng*.

4

A: 該一間班房有冇先生呀？

Nịng yīt-gan ban-fọng* yiu-mo lhing-sang a?

B: 冇，嚀一間班房有先生。

Mo, nịng yīt-gan ban-fọng* mo lhing-sang.

5

A: 嚀一間班房有冇黑板呢？

Nịng yīt-gan ban-fọng* yiu-mo hāk-bān ne?

B: 有，該一間班房有黑板。

Yiu, kwọi yīt-gan ban-fọng* yiu hāk-bān.

6

A: 該一間班房有學生冇呢？

Kwọi yīt-gan ban-fọng* yiu hòk-sang mo ne?

B: 冇，該一間班房冇學生。

Mo, kwọi yīt-gan ban-fọng* mo hòk-sang.

7

A: 嚀一間屋有牆冇呢？

Nịng yīt-gan ūk yiu tiäng mo ne?

B: 有，該一間屋有牆。

Yiu, kwọi yīt-gan ūk yiu tiäng.

8

A: 該一間屋有窗嗎？

Kwọi yīt-gan ūk yiu tong ma?

B: 冇，嚀一間屋冇窗。

Mo, nịng yīt-gan ūk mo tong.

9

A: 嚀一間屋有門嗎？

Nịng yīt-gan ūk yiu mön ma?

B: 有，該一間屋有門。

Yiu, kwọi yīt-gan ūk yiu mön.

10

A: 唔該，唔該。

M̈-goi, m̈-goi.

B: 唔使唔該。

M̈-sōi m̈-goi.

You can use the vocabulary list in the previous post to translate these questions and answers. If there are any questions, please don’t hesitate to post in the comments below.

Note that the expression 唔該 m̈-goi “thank you” is the term used in thanks for favors, not presents. You can also use this term to say “excuse me,” if you are trying to get someone’s attention, not as an apology. The term 唔使 m̈-sōi “no need” is not quite an equivalent to “you’re welcome”; it means something more along the lines of “it’s nothing.” But you can also use it to literally say, “it’s not necessary.” I was in a flower shop the other day, and when the owner offered to sprinkle glitter on the flowers, I simply said, “唔使!”

It wasn’t until I reached this lesson that I noticed the problem with Deng Jun’s convention of writing kwọi as 該; this character is the character used for goi, as in m̈-goi “thank you.” Since the Basic Course was handwritten, the author was able to essentially invent a new character by writing a tiny 口 next to 該 to denote kwọi “here/this,” a word that has no written equivalent in Standard Chinese. I’m going to stick with writing kwọi as 該 for now, but please let me know in the comments if you have any better suggestions!

My remarks from lesson four discuss some of the regular differences between the pronunciation in the Basic Course and the pronunciation in the Kaiping dictionary. Some words, like lā and nē, are transcribed with different characters. Deng Jun uses 啦 and 呐, respectively, but since these particles are more often spoken than written, I don’t consider this to be a major difference.

As I mentioned previously, I’m not familiar with the falling tone for 聽 hiàng, as in 聽早 “tomorrow.” The character 聽 is pronounced with a mid tone as either hen or hiang depending on the context, according to the Kaiping dictionary. If you’re more familiar with how to pronounce this word (at least with regard to tone), please drop me a comment and educate me!

Monday, February 14, 2011

This holiday is not one much celebrated in my family, but I thought it’s worth a post no less. In Chinese, Valentine’s Day is (perhaps more appropriately) called 情人節 or “Sweethearts’ Day.” So how to wish a happy Valentine’s Day in Taishanese? You might want to try…

情人節快樂！
tën ngën dīt fai lòk

That’s according to the pronunciation in the Kaiping dictionary. My best guess is that, according to the accent in the Basic Course, you’d likely say: tïng ngïn dīt fai lòk.

If you know of other “traditional” Valentine’s Day greetings in Taishanese, please feel free to drop a comment below! May your day be filled with love and joy!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Below is the vocabulary list for lesson five of the Basic Course. This lesson expands on lesson four, focusing on basic questions and classroom objects. I’ve transcribed it as close as I was able to, notes below.

All of the new words in this lesson have corresponding Chinese characters. The character 唔 is typically a Cantonese character, also used in other dialects like Hakka. Other words are new to me, like 聽早 hìng-dō “tomorrow.” I wasn’t able to find this word in the Kaiping dictionary, but the dictionary (really, a character dictionary—or 字典 dù-īng) doesn’t claim to be an absolute linguistic authority. If you have any insights to this vocabulary list, please feel free to share your thoughts below.

Tomorrow I’ll post the corresponding dialogue.

Update: So my note on 聽日 聽早 belies my supreme nonfluence of Taishanese. It’s embarrassing, I must admit. Like Cantonese, we use 聽日 聽早 for “tomorrow,” but apparently we pronounce 聽 with a different tone (hìng instead of hing)—or maybe it’s just a difference in the accents.

You’ll notice some obvious differences from the variant used in the Basic Course. I counted just five.

In terms of consonants, the letters b and w are both pronounced as v according to the Kaiping dicationary. So 報 becomes vo*, instead of po*. We don’t actually have to write v; we could continue to write w and p, and then simply remind ourselves to pronounce these letters like an English “v” when reading in this accent. But for the purposes of highlighting these different accents, I plan to write v for the Kaiping dictionary’s pronunciation.

As I mentioned before, this accent lacks the letters gw and kw, so 該 becomes kọi, instead of kwọi.

This accent has also lost the final ng following the vowel i. 嚀 becomes nẹn, instead of nịng. But wait—what about that e in nẹn?

This is the famous I-E accent split. Where some accents have i (e.g. 心 lhim), other dialects have e (e.g. 心 lhem). This rule doesn’t hold for all words with i; note 書 is pronounced si in both accents. This I-E accent split probably deserves a post of its own. (By the way, is there a better term for this distinction than “accent split”?)

Lastly, 見 is pronounced here as gin, instead of gen (or ging). It’s the flipside to the I-E contrast. The vowel in 見 can be either i, e or ia (also written ie), depending on the accent. From my experience, E-accents tend to pronounce 見 as gin, while I-accents pronounce 見 as either gen or gian. (You’ll notice that in the Basic Course, this word is transcribed as gien.)

If you find more, or see the need for corrections, please let me know in the comments!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Below is the vocabulary list for lesson four of the Basic Course. The lesson introduces basic questions along with classroom objects. I’ve transcribed it as close as I was able to, notes below.

早晨 · dō sïn · good morning

該尼 · kwọi nāi · these, this

係 · hài · is, are, am, were, was

乜(野) · mōt (yẹ) · what?

嚀尼 · nịng nāi · those, that

乃尼 · nại nāi · which? every

該一尼 · kwọi yīt nāi · these, these ones

嚀一尼 · nịng yīt nāi · those, those ones

乃一尼 · nại yīt nāi · which? which ones?

書 · si · book

筆 · bīt · pen

部 · bù* · notebook, exercise book

椅 · ī · chair

紙 · jī · paper

枱 · họi* · table, desk

畫報 · wà bo* · magaine

再見 · doi gen / doi ging · good bye, see you again

該一 · kwọi yīt · this one

嚀一 · nịng yīt · that one

Some of these words seem to have no corresponding Chinese character. In the Basic Course, all the Chinese is handwritten, and the author used a character radical 口 to produce a corresponding word for Taishanese. Add 口 to 該 for kwọi “this” and to 乃 for nāi “some.” I wasn’t able to make new characters myself, so I adapted some of the characters used by Deng Jun (鄧鈞) in his Kaiping Dialect Character Dictionary (開平方音字典).

The word 尼 nāi is important to know. It corresponds to the Cantonese word 尐/啲dī “some.” You use this word before plural nouns, like 我尼朋友 “my friends” or 我尼毛/頭髮 “my hair.” In quick speech, this word is often reduced to nā. Deng Jun transcribes this word with the character 尼, and I continue to do so here.

I’ve also applied my own romanization system here, based on my comments inpreviousposts. You should be able to review this system for transcribing vowels, consonants and tones in those posts.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Given how few people in the world speak Taishanese, I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of dictionaries and word lists had already been compiled. I was even more surprised to find a dictionary based on the speech as spoken in my grandmother’s hometown district, Chikan 赤坎, in Kaiping. The linguist Deng Jun 鄧鈞, a Kaiping native, published this Kaiping Dialect Character Dictionary開平方音字典 in 2003.

This dictionary provides a straightforward romanization scheme, and is organized with an eye to how the speech of Kaiping is currently used and understood. I may not have borrowed many of Deng’s romanization conventions, but the thought and structure behind his organization has influenced me greatly. His dictionary has been comfortably natural to use, while also enjoyably illuminating.

Since this dictionary very closely matches the speech of my own family, I will be retranscribing each lesson for myself with the pronunciation listed in the dictionary. If I can manage, I’ll also post these pieces on line.

For those who are interested (of whom I’m sure there are many), there is also a dictionary based on the speech of Taishan. I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy; I was too tired to look for it the last time I was in Taishan. The dictionary is based on the pronunciation of Taishan City 台城, or so I’m told. If you have a copy or know where to find one, please drop me a comment!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

It’s Chinese New Year—or Lunar New Year, as my Vietnamese friends continue to remind me—and so you might want to spread around the warmth of New Year greetings. How do you say it in Taishanese? Here are two common greetings:

新年快樂

恭喜發財

lhen nïn fai lòk

gung hēi fat töi

If you need help with reading the transcription, see my notes on consonants, vowels and tones. I’m not exactly sure how to pronounce these according to the accent of the Basic Course, but I’d wager one would say lhin nïan fai lòk and gung hī fat töi, respectively.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The third lesson in the Basic Course simply expands on the drills in lesson two. That lesson introduced the consonants, while the first lesson introduced the tones and vowels. The drills are pretty repetitive, and if I weren’t such a horrible speaker already, I would ignore them altogether.

I’ve uploaded all the pronunciation files in the first three lessons onto my smart phone, and I’ve been listening to them as I drive around Southern California. Sometimes I repeat after the reader, but otherwise, I like to think of it as an easy way to assimilate Taishanese rhythm and melody into my linguistic experience. You can download these audio files yourself at Ben’s Cantonese Practice Journal. (Ben, you are seriously my hero.)

I can’t wait to start working on real words and phrases next week in lesson four!